ARIZONA - Jennifer Didier, Steering Committee Chair
The Arizona chapter hosted a happy hour after Day 1 of SMB Live on April 11. Attendance was great! We formulated a board and had a few new members join. Here are some pictures from the event.
AUSTIN - Lacy Finley, Chapter President
March and April were successful months for IAMCP Austin! We hosted a Power Networking Mixer on March 28th that coincided with the SMB Live event at Microsoft. We had over 30 attendees at the mixer, and garnered several new members. Davin Cooke was instrumental in making this event a huge success!! Thanks, Davin!
On April 19th, acting president Lacy Finley traveled to Houston to speak on behalf of Voices for Innovation at the Houston IAMCP monthly meeting. The half-hour presentation covered the need for technology advocacy and how each of us can contribute to the unified voice of tech policy. For further information on how you can be a tech advocate, please visit www.voicesforinnovation.org.
Moving into May, IAMCP Austin is hosting a well-timed networking mixer and presentation in honor of Stars Wars Day… May the 4th be with you! Join us at the Capital Factory from 6-8PM and learn about Profit Wars - The Channel Awakens… Why Modernizing Sales and Marketing Matter! RSVP here.
CHICAGO - John Nicolau, Chapter President
We had a great turnout for the April 19 IAMCP/WIT event, “How to Build Solution Offerings and Grow Your Business with the Microsoft Cloud Platform.” Many thanks to Microsoft’s Chris Kahrs and Brian McGinnis for presenting.
We also had a great turnout for our April 27 “Leaning In To Joy” presentation by Laura Weber – even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joined us! So many thanks to Laura and to everyone who was able to be there. A special thanks to folks from our WIT team, especially Angela Dugan from Polaris Solutions and Sharan Hildebrand from Capax Global, for coordinating the event.
Our next IAMCP/WIT event will be on May 23rd, from 9:00am – 11:00am, again at the Microsoft offices in the AON Center. The topic will be Training as a Service (TaaS), presented by the folks from Directions Training, a longtime IAMCP/WIT member.
HOUSTON - AJ Ansari, Chapter President
The IAMCP Houston chapter is currently 31 members strong and, having finished an engaging Q1 full of activities, we are excited about what lies ahead for us in Q2 2017.
We held our joint IAMCP-WIT meeting in March, where our director-at-large, Kayla Lambert, shared the mission and promise of IAMCP’s global Women in Technology initiative.
Our April chapter meeting put the spotlight on VFI and technology advocacy with an enlightening presentation on the impact of legislation on technology companies by Lacy Finley, president of the IAMCP Austin chapter. Both March and April chapter meetings also featured sales education for our membership.
At the April Houston board meeting, the directors voted to add two new members to our board: Bethany Winslett of Logicalis, who will help bring more attention to chapter events and activities through social media outreach, and Sam Merchant of Infodat, who will spearhead philanthropy initiatives for the Houston chapter and our members.
In May, our chapter will host its first networking social on 5/17. Follow us on Twitter at @IAMCPHouston for details on the time and location of our upcoming event.
NORCAL - Dan Callahan, Chapter President
March was a busy month for IAMCP NorCal! Our monthly chapter meeting featured Jon Arikata of Microsoft talking about Azure. Jon always does a great job for us, helping “peel back” the communications from Microsoft around Azure and showing us how to start incorporating this into our businesses.
IAMCP NorCal and the NorCal chapter of WIT also participated in the Silicon Valley Forum’s Women in Technology Festival 2017. The festival was held over two days, and both of our chapters worked together at a table promoting WIT and IAMCP. Sharon Chang spearheaded the effort, with lots of help from Julie Plonk of Robert Half (we even got a cool banner in the deal!). Cathy Souza, Rebekkah Dorhout, Sydney Thornton, Julie and Dan Callahan engaged with lots of festival attendees, explaining the benefits of membership and signing people up for our newsletters. We even got to see a presentation by an eight-year-old girl who had started a coding company!
Next up for us was SMB Live, held in San Francisco. Many chapter members were present for one or both days. We held an informal networking event after Day One of SMB Live at Murphy’s Pub just down the street. We had about 15 people come over for some networking, swapping of stories and a chance to enjoy an “old San Francisco” venue. Everyone seemed to have a good time!
And in the meantime, we’re beginning to plan our board composition for the coming chapter year. Volunteers welcome!
PHILADELPHIA - Kevin S. Miller, Chapter President
The IAMCP Philadelphia April meeting had 21 attendees. Tim Pash, the Microsoft Technology Center director, spoke about how we can utilize the Microsoft resources available in our local office. Tim also emphasized the importance of partnering and developing those relationships with the territory. We can all work together to grow our footprint and overall market share. He let us know that sign-ups are open to IAMCP members for the next MS Essentials class that will be happening on May 6th.
We let the attendees know about the Get to Know Voices for Innovation program and how some members have utilized the program. Participating in VFI is a great way to stay informed about policy issues impacting the IT sector. It also enables us to work together to advance positive public policies. As an additional benefit, you can develop new skills and make new connections that can help your business and career.
Our May meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 9th. We’ll meet at the Microsoft Reactor, 3711 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA. Jeff Friedman, the director of the Reactor, will be speaking to attendees. The event starts at 2pm, with a networking event being held by the IAMCP group after the presentation.
SOCAL - Eric Klauss, Chapter President
The SoCal chapter had another great meeting in Irvine on April 6th. Barracuda Networks gave us an update on the rise of ransomware and what they are doing to help businesses. Sherman Crancer, Microsoft Sr. Business Channel Development Manager, followed with an attention-grabbing presentation on how to be more effective day-to-day in sales.
We are looking forward to our May 4th meeting, where we will learn about Microsoft Inspire and have a presentation with Action Point around IoT. Register today!
ST. LOUIS - Marty OBlack, Chapter President
At IAMCP St. Louis’ April meeting, Dan Cook, SMB Partner Sales Exec for Microsoft’s North Central Region, presented highlights of SMB Live for partners in the area unable to attend an SMB Live event. Topics included what’s new with Windows 10 Enterprise Subscription E3, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Azure and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Members learned how to position their practice to take full advantage of the Cloud Opportunity with Hybrid IT and Microsoft partner incentives! Our meeting touched key messages from the SMB Live first day, and then Danny answered questions from Microsoft partners attending.
TAMPA - Jon Rivers, Chapter President
April was a busy month for the Tampa chapter with the SMB Live road show coming to town and the chapter hosting a Power Networking & Business Builder Happy Hour on Day One of the event.
I personally wasn’t able to be at the SMB Live event due to other commitments, but want to give a huge thank you to the VP of our chapter, Mark Eckerty of Sophix Solutions, who does an amazing job.
On top of hosting an event around SMB Live, we also had our regular meeting where our discussion was around the hot topic of ransomware. Our presenter was Erich Kron, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, who is a veteran information security professional with over 20 years’ experience in the medical, aerospace manufacturing and defense fields. Erich had the crowd so engaged on the topic that we probably could have continued talking for a lot longer… but it was getting dark outside.
We would like to welcome our newest member, Milton Jones, president of APEX Digital Imaging, Inc., to the chapter!
See you at one of our upcoming chapter meetings:
- May 9th - Speed Networking for Partners, so make sure to bring plenty of business cards and your elevator pitch
- June 13th – Topic and speaker are currently being finalized
- July 11th – Happy hour & reception for people who are not able to attend Microsoft Inspire Conference
- August 8th – Machine Learning
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Frank Valdivieso, Chapter President
Our April meeting had a great turnout and brought 7 new member prospects! Topics were:
- Skype for Business (SKYPE4B) Voice Crash Course - Clark Currier with CallTower
- Understanding Investment Risk in Uncertain Times - Christopher Oxenham with Oxenham Financial
Join us at an upcoming meeting:
- May 17: Inspire Bootcamp – Our WPC (now Inspire) veteran panel will present best practices to help you make the most of the event - Register here! As part of our Partner Spotlight Series, we are featuring four of our chapter members as determined by business card drawing at the April meeting. They will provide a brief overview of their respective companies and what they are looking for in a partner. Members/companies spotlighted will be:
- Ken Glenn / Gross Mendelsohn
- Valerie Daniel / HPE
- Robert Jordan / APS
- Ron McCoy / MIS
- June 21: Teaming Prenuptials: “Protect your business from a costly divorce and client custody dispute” at the Microsoft Store -Tysons Corner, VA (Manager - Simeon Hill) - Register here
- July 19: Robert Half, the leader in professional staffing, will discuss their services
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